03-31-2026, 02:42 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-31-2026, 02:43 AM by HereOnThePrimalEdge.)
Tonight on PBS is the first installment of a three part series on Henry David Thoreau. A lot of people you’re sure to recognize are involved with the project. Take a step back in time.
The film draws on a rich collection of archival materials, newly filmed cinematography in Concord and beyond, and interviews with scholars, writers, and environmentalists. Among the people featured in the film are Pico Ayer, Douglas Brinkley, Lois Brown, Kristen Case, Laura Dassow Walls, Clay Jenkinson, Robin Kimmerer, J. Drew Lanham, Bill McKibben, Michael Pollan, Rebecca Solnit, and more.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU is narrated by George Clooney and voices are provided by Ted Danson (Ralph Waldo Emerson), Tate Donovan (William Ellery Channing), Jeff Goldblum (Henry David Thoreau), and Meryl Streep (Lidian Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Mary Merrick Brooks, and Maria Thoreau).
“Thoreau’s insistence that conscience must guide citizenship, and that solitude can be a source of strength, continues to speak directly to our time,” said executive producer Ken Burns. “He challenged Americans to ask hard questions about who we are and what kind of society we want to build, a challenge that remains as urgent today as it was in his day. But perhaps most importantly he asked us to stop and to pay attention to the world around us.”
Executive producer Don Henley, founding member and lead singer of the Eagles
The film draws on a rich collection of archival materials, newly filmed cinematography in Concord and beyond, and interviews with scholars, writers, and environmentalists. Among the people featured in the film are Pico Ayer, Douglas Brinkley, Lois Brown, Kristen Case, Laura Dassow Walls, Clay Jenkinson, Robin Kimmerer, J. Drew Lanham, Bill McKibben, Michael Pollan, Rebecca Solnit, and more.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU is narrated by George Clooney and voices are provided by Ted Danson (Ralph Waldo Emerson), Tate Donovan (William Ellery Channing), Jeff Goldblum (Henry David Thoreau), and Meryl Streep (Lidian Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Mary Merrick Brooks, and Maria Thoreau).
“Thoreau’s insistence that conscience must guide citizenship, and that solitude can be a source of strength, continues to speak directly to our time,” said executive producer Ken Burns. “He challenged Americans to ask hard questions about who we are and what kind of society we want to build, a challenge that remains as urgent today as it was in his day. But perhaps most importantly he asked us to stop and to pay attention to the world around us.”
Executive producer Don Henley, founding member and lead singer of the Eagles